Web Design Archives • Page 4 of 5 • TotalWeb Partners

April 8, 2019

5 Solid Web-Design Tips For Drawing In Clients

Creating a quality website might seem easy, especially with all the platforms available today. You can use a template for guidance and then publish what you think is most important to your brand in some very fun ways. But with all the bells and whistles out there, however, it’s easy for business owners to lose sight of the reason for their site in the first place: to attract and inform potential customers.

Your customers and clients are the roots of your business, and neglecting their needs when designing your site can be detrimental — and different audiences look for different things. Below, five members of Forbes Communications Council shared some fundamental web design tips that will help you draw in, and keep, new clients. Here’s what they said:

November 18, 2018

by TWP Publisher

The Art of Web Design

Website Content, Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Development

Websites have grown bland in the contemporary digital age. Template-driven and generic, homogenised by the frameworks of big-name content management systems. The internet is a place of dry technicality; portals seeking to convey information or to market a product to a specific audience, often afraid to break out of the norm.

Mammoth marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay are utilitarian in their layout and design, and countless smaller brands follow suit. Perhaps blinded by the success of those giants, maybe fearful of confusing potential customers. However, we must also keep in mind that computing technology and processing power has still been in relative infancy—something that has forced designers to adopt a ‘bare bones’ approach, simply so that the pages would not an age to load.

The advent of 4G wireless connectivity, processors associated with light-speed calculations, and network providers dishing out generous data packages has to some extent served to lift these previous constraints. Slowly, but surely, we are beginning to witness websites which mirror works of art.

A breed of disobedient designers are redefining the art of web design by bucking the visual conformity that has oversaturated our digital age—whether it is harnessing the avant garde approach of web design brutalism, the tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to the disagreeable design of the mid-1990s, or using the latest technologies to bring the progressive aesthetics of high-end fashion magazines to life, there are pioneers ready to bring a new visual language to the world wide web.

Be it culturally-engaged design brands or experimental musicians, simply creating a free web store or the birth of another personal blog, designers are taking notions of creativity to a whole new level. It is vital to create a sense of bespoke branding that will be memorable long after the visitor has left the page, to consider a human audience as opposed to a search engine. Sure, we want to provide a website that is easy to navigate, but too there should be an emotional, human connection that extends beyond homogenisation.

Top 5 Easy Web Design Tricks for Marketers To Boost Conversion Rates

Website Design Practices Web Design

Maximizing website conversion rates remains one of the single biggest challenges for marketers today. Effective SEO and PPC can significantly increase website traffic. But raking high on search engines and driving website traffic is just the first step. Your site needs to keep visitors’ attention, convey the value of your offer and compel them to take a desired action — complete a form, download a document, or call your business.

If your website conversion rates are lacking, your landing page design may require an overhaul. The question you have to ask yourself is: how many leads or sales are you losing due to sub-par landing page design?

The good news is website conversion rates are something you can directly impact and improve. Even small landing page design changes can dramatically impact visitor engagement and conversion rates.

In the second version, a simple change produced big positive results.

By choosing a photo of a baby “looking” at the ad’s headline, users’ eyes were drawn to the text. Our eyes are naturally drawn to look where others are looking. Even if it’s a picture of a baby in an ad.

What subtle improvements could you make to your company’s landing pages to increase conversion rates? Here are our top five examples:

1. Choose an image that supports the call-to-action.

It’s easy to simply slap a header image from a stock photo site on your landing page and call it a day. But it can pay off to use an image that works in tandem with your headline and call to action. The right image isn’t just eye candy. It’s there to convey an important message to the user, and to provide important context.

Here’s an exercise to try: look at your header image without the headline, or the text to explain it. Does it still “say” anything about your product or service? If not, consider looking for something that compliments the text. Netflix does a great job of this on their signup page:

July 12, 2018

by TWP Publisher

4 Reasons Why Effective Writing Must Figure in Your Web Design Strategy

Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Design Strategy

Digitization has caught up with us and is taking root in all parts of our lives. From businesses to individuals, all strive to carve their niche in our digital world. Both newbie web designers and some of the experienced hands who have been in the industry for decades still believe that a successful website is all about the visuals. To some degree that is true; designing aesthetics and visuals are of great importance, but another aspect that should be recognized is compelling writing.

The textual content that you write is just as significant as the images that you will use and below are the reasons why.

Writing Grabs Attention

Forget the website for a minute, what do you do when you want to grab someone’s attention? You will probably shout or even scream to achieve this.

The same concept applies in the online space. So how exactly can you grab attention online through your website? Images can work magic, but they are not enough as attention-grabbing tools by themselves. It’s the content that helps your visuals attract and hold the attention of web visitors.

By using engaging content, you will be able to make a point in a precise manner effectively. You can create an element of surprise with your content, use it to shock your audience or use it to engage and pique the interest of your audience. But even as you are about to put down your words into writing, you should know that the content that you come up with must be written impeccably to grab attention.

2. Writing Helps You Demonstrate Credibility

Different kinds of sites have different expectations, but they all have a common requirement. They all have to look credible. It’s a logical requirement if you are using your website as a tool to help you sell something, promote a cause or indulge people in doing specific activities. The bottom line is, you need them to trust you and to achieve that, your website must look reliable.

The good news is it’s not rocket science to create a robust website that looks serious. Just like mentioned above, having the right visual elements and arranging them nicely is not enough to cut it. Your site still won’t appear complete and will require a cherry on top which is the added text. With good writing, not only will your website engage audiences, but it will also make your site weblink appear credible.

You can also subtly achieve this. It is unnecessary to write about the high quality of your products or brag about your high level of honesty. On the contrary, such statements could potentially have the opposite effect on your audience. When it comes to reputations of companies, it’s best when it speaks for itself.

July 9, 2018

by TWP Publisher

8 RULING WEB DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2018

Website Design Practices Web Design

Web design trends have undergone an apparent change as one of the most dynamic industries in web technologies. It is 2018, the eighteenth year of the millennia, a year for exploration of the web technologies in a dynamic perspective. Web technology is unbeatable and with the ever-rising technical challenges as more products get into the market, the only choice of web designers is be innovative and put up with the changing trends. They have to ensure that their designs fit any internet device be it a desktop or a smartphone. Here is a list of 8 ruling web design trends that will shape the web industry in 2018.

Prioritizing mobile web designs

Smartphones have surpassed desktop and notebook computers in browsing. According to Statista, a renowned scientific research organization, projections hold that by 2020 over 40 percent of the population of the world will own a smartphone. Interesting facts by the same organization project an annual smartphone shipping capacity of 1.7 billion by 2021. The implication is that most people will surf the net using smartphones. 2018 resolution is to give priority to mobile web designs. This year, 2018, is a year of transformative web design as designers embrace the reality of battling with technical challenges to give their users a satisfying experience in their web products with a top priority on mobile designs. Have a look on 7 essential principles of mobile web design to get designed a good mobile site.

August 15, 2017

by TWP Publisher

The Latest in Web Design? Retro Websites Inspired by the ’90s

Business News, News Web Design

To navigate the website for Arcade Fire’s coming album, “Everything Now,” users need to click through a cluttered cascade of Windows 98-style pop-ups.

Balenciaga’s new website looks as stripped down as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, with plain black boxes and no-frills Arial font.

And the D.I.Y.-looking home page for Solange resembles the desktop of a candy-colored iMac, complete with QuickTime windows and rows of blue folders.

Web designs have come a long way in 20 years, but some are taking a step back to evoke a sort of hipster nostalgia for the early days of the internet.

“They’re tipping their hat to the 1990s,” said David Lee, the chief creative officer of Squarespace, a web platform company based in New York that has created millions of websites for clients. Mr. Lee said that he has seen a recent uptick in what he calls an “anti-design brutalism,” with clients opting for more bare-bones, retro-looking sites.

Some websites are purposely cumbersome to navigate, with loud, clip-art-filled pages. Others employ a simplistic Craigslist-style utilitarianism that feels like a throwback to an era when web pages were coded by hand.

“There’s a lot of animated GIFs and flames, but mixing it with something new,” Mr. Lee added.

While millennials and members of Generation Z — those born in the years from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s — may not remember what the web looked like in the era of AltaVista and GeoCities, the retro designs tap into the current cultural revival of all things ’90s. (See the return of “Twin Peaks,” “Will & Grace” and concert T-shirts.)

For those who are older, these sites recall the improvised internet of their youth, in the days before mobile optimization and beta-tested user interfaces brought a sleek uniformity to modern web design.

Nostalgic websites meant to mimic the days of dial-up modems are cropping up in artsy and tech-geek corners of the web.

Windows93.net, a web project by the French music and art duo Jankenpopp & Zombectro, imagines what the Microsoft operating system would have looked like had it been released. (After a two-year development delay, Microsoft instead released Windows 95.) The site has had more than eight million visitors.

August 8, 2017

by TWP Publisher

Artificial Intelligence Meets Web Design

Business News, News, Website Design Practices Web Design

Since its launch way back in the 1980s, the Internet has undergone several evolutions. In the early stages, there was no need for complex, image-based sites with diverse variations in typography, font, or any aspect regarding visual content. However, with the progression of time, such websites are today’s need for any business that wants to establish its online presence.

With this brand-new trend, the demand for elegant web layouts with compelling animated designs has become the present norm. These websites, which have a unique feature to tell stories, leave a considerable impact on the psyche of the customers and users.

Today’s modern-day website, which makes use of artificial intelligence, is an extremely well-weaved and a seemingly complex collection of audio-visual images and content that are designed to convey information so that it leaves a lasting impression on the consumer.

In the present digital age, surfing websites powered with Artificial Intelligence or AI is a grand experience for the user. With millions of dollars pumped into the industry, website designing is a great and profound market.

There are thousands of web designers and trained designing experts who tirelessly work to create captivating websites for end users, be it a business or an individual.

This growing demand has additionally resulted in the emergence and creation of cutting-edge graphic design software, which is used to create gob-smacking designs. The high demand for mesmerizing designs has further attracted one more aspect of the Internet and its technology, which is undisputedly artificial intelligence.

July 11, 2017

by TWP Publisher

Drive Leads with 6 Critical Web Design Elements

Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Design Elements

There is a lot you can do to drive traffic to your B2B website: on-page search engine optimization (SEO), promoting it on social media channels, search engine marketing (SEM), display ads, direct mailers, and email campaigns, just to name a few.

However, what good is all that great visitor traffic if your website if you aren’t getting any new leads?

While the purpose of a website is not solely to drive leads, it’s often the most tangible ROI of any B2B website. For this very reason, it’s critical that any B2B firm’s website is maximized for lead generation. Below are six tips to start driving more website leads.

Intuitive Layout

Recently, we explored critical considerations for digital marketing and usability along with how this impacts the perception of your brand. It’s essential that your B2B website layout is intuitive, easy to navigate, and prioritizes things your prospects and clients care about.

If your firm’s contact information and access to the products and services you offer are the main concern for prospects, put those at the top of the page. If articles discussing how your products are best utilized or a demo of your products are important to your potential clients, make those very easy to find.

There is no one best layout for a B2B website (hence why template websites aren’t ideal), but the main rule is that you don’t want your users to have to hunt for information. Make everything easy to find and enable users to get to information within one to two clicks.

July 6, 2017

by TWP Publisher

How to Avoid 6 Common Web Design Mistakes That Hurt SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Design Practices SEO, Web Design

We can all agree that the best websites are designed for both users and search engines, right?

That means you never should sacrifice beauty over function, or vice versa.

Check your website for the following six common mistakes to see if your beautiful design is preventing your pages from ranking high in search engines.

Mistake 1: Missing H1 Tags (Especially on the Home Page)

Imagine entering a website with a nice background picture, a well thought out font, and an elaborate color scheme. It looks amazing. Browsing through feels like a walk in a beautiful garden.

Too bad nobody will find it in search engines.

Why? Because very often website designers and developers forget about essential SEO elements.

The most common offense is removing an H1 tag just because there is no place for it on the page.

The H1 tag is one of the first elements search engine crawlers will look at to determine what the page is about. Having this tag, and including your target keyword, improves your chances of ranking higher.

Here’s a website that has a clear H1 tag front and center:

February 28, 2017

by TWP Publisher

Is Web Design Dying?

Website Design Practices Web Design, Web Development

Web design isn’t dying. It’s just being folded into full stack development.

There are several design specializations that are relevant to web development, such as user experience design and visual design.

Web design is no such specialization – it’s a more general term that’s traditionally associated with building static websites, or dynamic websites built on top of an off-the-shelf content management system like WordPress or Drupal.

But web applications are becoming more complicated. This complexity requires additional skills. Hence the rise of the full stack developer, who is comfortable with front end development tools (like React) and back end development tools (like Node.js).

Also, the term “web design” has generally fallen out of favor – at least here in San Francisco. Plenty of laypeople still refer to the act of building websites as “web design” but far fewer practitioners refer to themselves as “web designers.”

This question originally appeared on Quora. the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, and Facebook. More questions:

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